I'm still checking it out. Note that some of the article has
been extracted from the Yowusa website which has been
alarmist in the past on the chances of Yellowstone exploding._________________Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.

Last edited by Fintan on Wed Aug 04, 2010 2:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

Oil spill dispersant could damage coral populations
New Scientist
August 2010 - Laboratory tests suggest that Corexit 9500A, the dispersant used by BP to tackle the largest offshore oil spill in US history, stops coral larvae latching onto the surfaces where they usually mature._________________The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
- Chinese proverb

At 1 am today, we got the "everything is fine" press release from BP proclaiming that the well, after the "textbook" static kill, is static. They studiously avoided the words "dead" or "killed". Per usual, they also provided no further information.

I was watching the feeds of the worsening leak coming from the lower flex joint flange at the moment I got the press release. Odd. If the well is static, then why is the wellhead leaking? Also, the leaking fluid is rising, indicating hydrocarbons, and continues even at this moment.

This whole operation has given me the willies. Back a hundred years ago (well, at least the 70s), when I was breaking out as an oil well cementer, the cementer I was shadowing always taught me that if you have a leak, any leak, you stop and fix it before you start a job. In all my years in the oilfield, whether I was pumping cement jobs, frac jobs, drilling, circulating, or killing a well, if I had a leak, I stopped. Period. The only time I would keep pumping with a leak was only if more damage would be caused by stopping.

BP has violated this principle in spades by doing what they are doing. Now that they've proclaimed the well is "static", they've also gone radio silent with no press conferences or technical McBriefings scheduled for today.

Admiral Allen is doing a victory lap at this moment during the White House briefing, also not giving any data, besides just saying that it's static with seawater. Again, if that was true, why is the wellhead leaking? To be clear, dead means dead. If it's leaking oil, that means it's not dead.

The amazing thing is that not one reporter is informed enough to even ask what's going on. They're more focused on the fantasy report issued this morning by NOAA & the USGS, that remarkably claims that, even though they collected only 25% of the produced oil, all but 26% is magically gone, and that all of the fish that were contaminated with oil will rapidly recover and be safe for human consumption very quickly.

I'm sitting here watching oil leaking from a well that is supposedly dead. I'm listening to Admiral Allen saying the well is dead and to Jane Lubchenco and Carol Browner seriously contending that almost 4 million barrels of oil have disappeared. Is it just me, or are we watching the Matrix in real life?

I pointed out that the low sub-7,000psi pressure reading when they
capped the well was far below the projected, expected 8,500psi+.
And that it meant the well was likely leaking underground.

I think it's been leaking far enough down hole to not pose a risk of an
imminent sea floor blowout. And so they decided to handle the well
in two sections: above the underground leak and below the leak.

So they just handled the top section with the static kill and cement.

And that bottom section is still leaking.

They may yet succeed in killing the lower section with the relief well.

But that could be a complicated job.

And the underground leak may find it's way to the sea floor
if they don't get the bottom kill done quickly.

(Assuming, that is that we don't already have sea floor leakage
at some distance from the well --which is being concealed from us.)

Meanwhile, please don't upset the American people
by telling them it's still leaking underground.

"The big conversation yesterday really had to do
with whether or not the drill pipe was still intact."

It's hardly a "conversation" point.

It's the oil elephant in the center of the room.

Thad Allen carefully phrased that comment.

Let me rephrase to acknowledge the oil elephant:

"The big conversation yesterday really had to do with
whether or not the well is STILL leaking underground."

But that kind of frankness would have led to headlines like:

BP Well May Still Be Leaking Underground

And full frankness about the implications of the too low
well pressure after capping would have led to headlines like:

BP Well Likely Still Leaking Underground

Instead we mostly got headlines like:

Gulf Spill: It's All Over. Fur-gedd-aboud-it.

Now here's revealing comments from the drilling pros at The Drillers Club.
(I've bolded the important points)

This gives you the gory details on the reality of the claimed progress.

Quote:

Comment by Horizon3

If this thing had worked, (It hasn't) there would be no leaking oil, it would be leaking mud.

They are most likely pumping through the rupture disks in the 16" and thence into the formations at the 18" and or 22" shoes.

The reason this is, it's because the rupture disks have already failed, they were designed to rupture below the burst pressure of the 16" which is 6,917psi and below the collapse pressure of the 9-7/8" which is 5,340psi at the casing hanger.

They have pulled the same scam they did on the first top kill, declaring it a success, when everyone watching an ROV cam knew different, dead wells don't flow, PERIOD!.

The leaks on the BOPs are getting worse not better, as would be the case if the well were dieing do to the hydrostatic of the mud. Their pump pressure should be decreasing with each bbl of mud pumped, until the mud reached the producing formation, it has not done so.

If they were pumping mud down the path of the oil flow, given the rate of leakage from the several places in the BOPs, there would be mud flowing from those leaks, as the oil would have been displaced out of the stack trough them and replaced with the inflowing kill mud, that has not happened as the leaks are still flowing oil and gas. The pressure to push mud up the stack and out of the leaks would be less than the pressure to push it downhole, 2,200psi vs 7,000psi.

Just an educated guess but the combined leaks are probably close to 1/2 to 1 bpm in volume, they have been pumping for close to 24 hours, the stack holds about 30bbls the leaks should be emitting mud, they are not.
There is no evidence of a decrease in pressure, even though BP does not show the readings, that too is obvious as the leaks are increasing in size, rate and number not decreasing as they should if the well was dying due to mud hydrostatic. (If the Pressure was dropping)

I have been doing well kills for 25 years, I am not a worm.

The well is either not dead or they are still pumping on it, as oil and gas are still coming out of the leaks. Mud is not.

They have been most likely pumping through the rupture disks in the 16", the 6,989psi shut in pressure plus injection pressure is far above their rating, and above the rating of the 16" itself. The mud is probably going out into a loose sand somewhere between, the 16" shoe and the 22" shoe. There is plenty of it, this entire well was plagued with lost circulation and ballooning.

The primary reason they never got to a full wellhead pressure is these lost zones, there is a big one right beneath the producing horizon, and the oil is being injected into it, because it has a lower pore pressure than the producing zone.

They lost over 3,000bbl of 14.1ppg mud to that zone.

The gas sands directly above the oil zone have a 13.6ppg pore pressure, they are not going to kill that zone with 13.2ppg kill mud mud, which is what they purportedly pumped.

They did not position micro-seismic gear prior to shutting the well in, so they really have no clue where the mud is going. Because they have no baseline seismic profile to compare to.

If they cement up the top portion of the well, all it will accomplish is make the bottom kill via relief well that much more difficult, not easier. Because they will be unable to pump mud to the well head from the bottom.

And some poor sod is going to have to put a rig over the well to fish up the old BOPS if they can, after being pumped full of cement. And put on another set, to go in and drill out that top cement and finish displacing the hole to mud before they set final bridge plugs and cement.

=========

Maybe you should consider that the well was never shut in, it was flowing the whole time, into a lost zone.

Just because you can not see the flow at surface does not mean the well was not flowing.

The 7,000psi (6,989 if you want to be critical) could well be the pressure at the well head cause by injection pressure at the zone that the oil was being pushed into.

This is a 10billion bbl reservoir, it would not have lost 3,000psi in 90days, you might want to regroup on that one.

At no time has this well been produced to it's full potential, that is a fact.
From BPs own Schlumberger wireline RFT, this well has the potential to flow 60kbpd, but that is with a contiguous oil column to surface, that has not been achieved yet. The well has always had to flow against 5,000ft of seawater head.

With the burst disks and multiple liner hangers, and no cement up into any of the liner laps this POS well could be flowing subsurface into a multitude of locations.

I just checked the ROV feeds and the flex joint flange, annular flanges and the CTX connector are still leaking, at about the same rate they were leaking before they started pumping on the well. As well as gas bubbles coming up around the 28" conductor, and out of its "Closed" cementing valves.

Again "Dead" wells don't leak against 5,000ft of seawater head.

========

You may trust BP but I don't, they have been caught out in too many lies and misinformation starting on day one with the well depth, and what pipe is in the hole.

They are lawyered up to the gump stump, and the lawyers are calling the shots on information to the public, hence the numerous ROVs down there with blank feeds.

They feed poor old Thud Allen buckets full of crap every day, and he not knowing any better just parrots it. Allen is a great Coasty, but DNS about drilling or well control. And neither do any of Obamas scientist genius', there is not one single member of any of his teams and commissions that have ever stepped on a rig, let alone drilled or designed a well. I have spoken with some of them, and they don't know a pumpjack from a drilling rig.

Your last two messages are somewhat prevocative, perhaps deliberately so, but unfortunately I personally have to agree with much of what you're saying. I too suspect that there's a lot of whitewash being put on things now the major flow has been stopped. The general public might accept it (I include Saint Barack in that category), but not hardened, cynical, forever wary oilfield hands like ourselves........

Also, if they achieved a 'static kill' rate of 15 bpm as Burenye states, I have great doubts that it was all (if any) going to the payzone. My guess is that they've got an 'underground blowout 'somewhere and / or the hole has now packed off above the reservoir. However, that's dust that can be swept under the carpet with no cause for alarm in the public domain. It would also explain why it was primordial to case off the relief well before the so-called 'static kill' commenced.

please provide some perspective by explaining what BP's motives would be for doing what you say they are doing. Are you indicating that they are tring to mask an underground blowout so that they won't have to fix it?

A subsurface blowout is not a really big deal 80miles offshore, unless it's going into a freshwater aquifer, that would show up on land eventually.

That said, it will eventually find a way to breach the mudline, whether trough a fracture or simply a rock outcropping somewhere close.

However if the flow is close to the mudline and breaches near to the well, BIG problems will result, as the well will crater, and makes any other attempts at killing the well even more difficult, as ROV work is out the window, they cannot see where they are going, 0 visibility.

And eventually the BOP and wellhead will bend over and will collapse into the crater.

It makes the kill by relief well more difficult by enlarging the hole by the minute, making it exponentially harder to fill with kill mud, and keep full.

I was on the crew that killed a subsurface blowout in Nigeria, it cratered so badly it swallowed an entire jack-up rig. The only thing left was about 40ft of the bow leg sticking up through the mud.

Guess there's no need to comment but you'd think there'd be more folks - especially on the east coast - chiming in. I'm on the cape of cod...

I'm here in the East, so I'll chime in.

Quote:

What were they "thinking" when they said 75% of the oil has been cleared (already)?

Very odd. People with eyes and ears do not seem to buy that statistic. Seems to be a frozen moment in time where the most we hear if we don't have the internet is a late night comedian make a trivial funny. (something about plugging the leak with 'insert celebrity or political figure')

Is this cognitive dissonance?
Where does BP, Our Govt
(apparently hand in hand?) get the BALLS?
CostCo?

I'm thinking of what Alan Watt said about the media's role in relating follow ups of claims and litigation. That this is more to pacify the public.
Surely this thing about (a lot of) oil stopping current flow is a bit of a matter. Haven't looked into the break down rate of oil in sea water but I doubt it's as fast as claimed.
Can't imagine the adverse economic effects to be played out down there (and elsewhere)... there may be an influx of (more) seniors to the cape here. It would be a sight to behold if oil showed up on beaches here....
the land of the beautiful people with their trophy homes.